# You called render with invalid options : {:text=\>"howdy"}, nil

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 15, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940 "2009-03-15T23:58:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940/1 "2009-03-15T23:58:22Z")

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I just “upgraded” to Rails 2.2.2.

In environment, I’ve set:  
RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION = ‘2.2.2’ unless defined? RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION

In development.rb and production.rb I’ve commented out:  
#config.action\_view.cache\_template\_extensions = false

I now get an error:  
You called render with invalid options : {:text=\>“howdy”}, nil

The data within the curlies will be appropriate to the page. It’s  
usually something like:  
{:layout=\>true, :file=\>“page/list”}, nil

In the :text example, I’m trying to isolate the controller and the  
views out of the picture and render some simple text to the screen  
using:  
def mypage  
render(:text=\>“howdy”)  
end

It doesn’t matter whether I’m running Apache/mod\_rails or Mongrel, I  
get the same error. Must be something basic, but there isn’t much on  
the web about it. Any ideas will be appreciated.

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940/2 "2009-03-16T02:22:51Z")

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On Mar 15, 10:08 pm, Phillip [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> It doesn’t matter whether I’m running Apache/mod\_rails or Mongrel, I  
> get the same error. Must be something basic, but there isn’t much on  
> the web about it. Any ideas will be appreciated.

Random guess: you’ve got a plugin that was overriding some action  
controller internals and those internals have changed.

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940/3 "2009-03-16T07:04:35Z")

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As Fred said, what plugins/gems are you using?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 1:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/you-called-render-with-invalid-options-text-howdy-nil/162940/4 "2009-03-24T13:55:02Z")

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Thanks everyone for responding. I thought I had posted the answer  
somewhere, but I don’t see it here. The problem is with the Textmate  
Footnotes plugin as described here:

[http://blog.insoshi.com/2008/07/03/a-rails-21-case-study-upgrading-the-insoshi-social-networking-platform/](http://blog.insoshi.com/2008/07/03/a-rails-21-case-study-upgrading-the-insoshi-social-networking-platform/)

which will take you here:  
script/plugin install git://github.com/drnic/rails-footnotes.git